Your Voice Is Your Brand
We’re not talking about your literal speaking voice. We’re talking about your personality – the thing that makes you “you”.
And if you want people to buy from you, they have to know, like and trust you – in that order.
So if your authentic personality doesn’t show, how can they get to know you?
In this series of linked blog posts we’ve been talking about not re-inventing the wheel. We’ve talked about using done-for-you content and sites so that you can have an online presence sooner – not later.
(did you miss the earlier parts? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
So if you use ready-made content, how can you be authentic?
It’s your voice – use it
A very simple trick for taking ready made content is to read it out loud. Don’t worry, you can do it on your own – you don’t have to have an audience and you don’t have to post audio on your blog! No, this is just a very powerful technique for finding out which content matches your personality and which needs some work.
When you hear content out loud you will know immediately whether it sounds like “you”. Some parts of the content may be ok, or neutral, but certain parts just won’t “gel” with you. Those are the parts that you rewrite.
Say it again, Sam
With apologies to those who don’t get the connection to “Casablanca”, let’s clarify what that subheading actually means!
To convert a sentence, or block of text, into your voice pretend that you are speaking to a friend or family member.
Say out loud what you would say to them to convey the meaning of the block of text. Easy, right? Then type it up.
If you’d never routinely say “in consideration of the multi-variate circumstances pertaining to optimized algorithms” then change it – in my case I’d say it something like “when I think about optimizing computer code I take into account all the possibilities”.
It takes far less time to do than you think, but for some reason so many people never do this. In a way that’s good news! It means your competitors aren’t doing it – that makes it easier for you to stand out!
Templates
A template is anything that gives you a starting point. But it’s not an ending point! Whether you buy bespoke articles, blog themes, or even images, they are a way for you to get started sooner and finish quicker.
They’re like flat pack furniture, or Betty Crocker recipe mixes. You can personalize them to make them yours.
The simplest template is an article. You can reuse an article multiple times on multiple sites if you want, with just a little tweaking each time. A big step up after that is an entire ready-made site.
Ready-made sites mean you can have a web presence literally in minutes. We know from what subscribers tell us that some people take months to build a site from scratch (my first lousy little site took me 3 months, 13 years ago).
In webinars that we’ll be running in the next couple of weeks we’ll show you how to take a ready-made site, install it in minutes and then personalize it the easy way.
You’ll want to watch out for the invitation to those webinars because your path to market will be infinitely smoother and faster using the techniques and resources we’re going to share with you.
Watch your email for your invitation to the webinars!